Originally drawn up in 1944 to US Navy requirements, for a high-altitude day -fighter, production of the F-86 Sabre did not begin until after the end of World War II. Revisions based on designs and testing from German aeronautical engineers that was realized in the design of the Messerschmitt Me 262, and eventually obtained after the war, the F-86 was altered to become USAAF's (United States Army Air Force) first swept-wing jet fighter. One of the biggest attributes of the plane was its speed and maneuverability. The design of the Russian Sukhoi Su-9 was also directly influenced by studying Messerschmitt Me 262s technology after the end of the war..

The initial test flight of the F-86 Sabre was made in 1947, while the first production model flew in 1948. In 1948 an F-86A set a new world speed record of 670 mph.

With 20 variants, more than 5,500 F-86 Sabres were built by the North American Aviation Company in their Los Angles, California and Columbus , Ohio plants. The F-86 was the United States Air Force's primary jet fighter in the Korean War. (The USAF became a separate branch of the military in September, 1947.) Some of the planes that it replaced in the Korean War included the Lockheed F-80 Shooting Star Fighter and the North American F-51 Mustang. (In 1948 the nomenclature for the plane changed, as it went from a P-51 to the F-51.) The F-86 was usually opposed by the MIG-15 or later the MIG-19 during the war. With close to 800 MIGs shot down during the war, conflicting kill-ratio reports vary from between 14:1 to 10:1. Armed with six 50 caliber machine guns, the F-86 Sabre had to be in visual contact with the enemy before shooting; thereby making the plane the last true “dogfighter” of the USAF. Regardless of which success ratio one wants to look at, the F-86 Sabre ranks as one of the most successful fighter aircraft of all time. It's dominance in Korea dramatically altered the war.

With a crew of one, the jet was driven by one General Electric J-47 turbojet. Armament included six .50 caliber machine guns and eight 5-inch rockets or two1,000 pound bombs.

All told, there were 20 variants of the plane: F-86A, E, F and H were day fighters or fighter-bombers while the F-86D, K and L were all-weather interceptors. The Japanese Air Self-Defense Force (JASDF) reached an agreement with the North American Aviation Company, as the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Company built the F-86F-40-NA for Japan . Over 4,000 F-86s were built in four overseas countries, with the last airplane coming from Japan in 1961. All told, the F-86 was used in the air forces of over twenty other nations. The US Navy, the branch of the service who initially wrote the specs for the plane, eventually had a variant of the F-86 with the Fury, a carrier-based jet fighter. The Fury had four versions: FJ-1, FJ-2, FJ-3, and FJ-4.

U.S. production of the F-86 Sabre jet ended in 1956.

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